Reactive polymer as a versatile toolbox for construction of multifunctional superparamagnetic nanocomposites.

The development of magnetic nanoparticles with multiple functions has been an ever-growing field because of their diverse applications in drug delivery, biosensing, cell labeling, and so on. In this study, a facile method was developed to construct multifunctional magnetic nanocomposites. The approach is based on the use of poly(glycidyl methacrylate), PGMA, with numerous epoxy groups as reactive polymer to combine with fluorescent dye, the surface of magnetic nanoparticles, and targeting ligands directly without expatiatory functionality design. The resultant nanocomposites with good superparamagnetic and fluorescent properties could be exploited for bioimaging. Moreover, after conjugation with a model protein, namely, transferrin, which specifically targets cells overexpressing transferrin receptors, the nanocomposites could be used selectively to recognize Hela cells in comparison with nonconjugated ones. These results indicate that the newly designed magnetic nanocomposites with PGMA as functional polymer could serve as a novel versatile platform to conjugate with various molecules for construction of diverse multifunctional magnetic nanocomposites to meet different requirements and potential uses in nanomedicine and biological chemistry.